June 16, 2001

Hail,

We've finally got the schedule for the last two shows straightened out. "My Night at Daria's" is this week, to be followed by "Boxing Daria." Probably. The latter seems an odd lead-in to the movie, but the short description about a carton could well be totally wrong. Guess we'll find out in a couple weeks.

This last episode just seemed a bit out of place. It just doesn't seem right for that episode to be placed here in the season. I'll get into why in a bit.

Quinn wasn't really in this episode. Her only function was to get things to where she could suggest the scholarship (much more on this later). Not much can be said about her, except she's still as shallow as ever, worried more about her Fashion Club status than what she's eating.

Jake's main purpose this episode was really to get Quinn to mention a scholarship. The subplot didn't offer anything else, except a reinforcement of Jake's goofus status. Except for the new information that he probably needs glasses, at least for reading, anyway. His hot-dog eating competition was almost a good idea, but what kind of publicity is holding it at a high school going to get him? How many of the high schoolers need marketing consulting? Well, there is Charles, maybe...

Charles at least got show as somewhat intelligent, even if he was an amoral slimeball. If he works on those (in)famous interpersonal skills of his, he'll probably go far. I wouldn't be surprised if he's rich in ten years, and in a federal penitentiary for junk bond fraud in twenty. We may actually be seeing Charles in the movie at this rate, this seems to be the season his character is used.

Jodie was her normal competitive self. Daria had a problem with her applying for the scholarship, but Jodie was right on this one, it is open to all. Her morals did show through a bit when she didn't tell anyone else, though. Her answers to the interview questions certainly were a bit too pat. With all her activities and jobs she's probably been through a lot of similar interviews.

Jane didn't get much of a look-see this episode, but she was the one with the most potentially interesting plot. We've known about her academic performance for quite a while, and we've seen hints of her insecurity before, but it's never been really addressed. Unfortunately, it didn't get addressed here, either. We simply don't know enough about the subject to judge her behavior this episode, and I'm hoping this will be cleared up at least some in the movie. We don't have any idea what her future plans are, and the only real hint we have is her fantasy back in "College Bored". She seems likely to skip college all together in favor if her art, but how practical that is we don't know. Her parents don't seem to mind Trent hanging around the house without a job, so Jane'll probably be welcome, but would she put up with it? She can do some work for Gary's Gallery if she has to, but again, would she?

Tom didn't get much of a part this episode either. His purpose was to tell Daria about Face of Evil Dot Com. This was a bad plot move in the first place, since making the corporation be "bad" allowed Daria to short-cut the interesting questions in favor of the sort of ended we got. Tom's own behavior wasn't very spectacular this episode. He was pretty rude to Jake, he could at least have taken the sample and tossed in Daria's trash. His behavior towards Daria wasn't great, either, with that silly question and his response to her lack of response. I don't understand why he had his "jump up and shout" line, as we've never seen Daria do anything of the kind. You'd think things that got Daria to jump up and shout would be interesting and important enough to have appeared in an episode by now. It also makes me wonder what he's doing for college. I'm sure his parents will be paying for him to go somewhere, but where? Probably Ivy League, but we've seen absolutely no indication of what Tom wants to do after high school.

Daria got some good lines this episode, but she had some curios blind spots as well. This can't be the first she's thought about college expenses. She has commented on them before, and her parents have been having her do stuff for college applications as far back as "College Bored" and "Cafe Disaffecto". Her family appears affluent, but Jake's always worried about money, so how much of it is debt? Daria seems to expect her parents to totally pay for her college.
The whole scholarship plot doesn't work very well. It's far easier than the show represents to get an academic scholarship. There are quite a few out there for people without extracurriculars, especially women. Daria should be offered some by the colleges she applies (applied?) to, as well. Female students with good grades and test scores are something colleges love to get.
Which brings up the question of which college Daria's planning to go to. That'll presumably be cleared up in the movie, but this is the first episode to even mention college at all. After graduation is much too late to start worrying about it.
Other than that, she didn't have a chance to do anything really interesting. With such a strong negative message about the ethics of the company, the real issues were basically sidestepped.

It could have been a good episode, there were some good lines in there. There was certainly plenty of potential for humor and drama. Unfortunately, they pretty much missed out on both. Everything together made it one of the "oh, it's half an hour later" episodes.

Wraith